"If you kill me," replies Xuthus, "you will kill your father." You my father!" cries Ion; "how so? It makes me laugh to hear you." A strict examination of the father by the son ensues; and at last, neither of the disputants being very critical, and both very devout, the sudden relationship is accepted with full faith by both, and they tenderly embrace each other. Xuthus then imparts to Ion his purpose of taking him to Athens, but of concealing their position for a while. His wife, he argues, may not be greatly pleased at being so suddenly provided with a ready-made son and heir. She comes of a royal house, and so is particular on the score of "blue blood." The youngster, if adopted, will inherit her property. The discovery of him may be all very well for her husband, who, having once been a wanderer, may, for all she knows, have a son in many towns, Greek or barbaric. But how will this treasure-trove remove from herself the reproach of barrenness? There is, too, such a thing as pre-nuptial as well as post- nuptial jealousy; and though so comely, gracious, and religious a youth cannot fail, after a time, to ingratiate himself even with a stepmother, there may be much domestic controversy before SO desirable a consummation is possible. Xuthus then informs Ion that he intends to celebrate this joyful event by a sacrifice to Apollo, and by a general feast to the Delphians :

"At my

table

Will I receive thee as a welcome guest,

And cheer thee with the banquet, then conduct thee
To Athens with me as a visitant."

On leaving the stage he tells the Chorus, who, of course, have heard the real story, to keep what they know to themselves. If they let his wife into the secret they shall surely die; and, inasmuch as they are Athenian women, Xuthus has the right to threaten, as well as the means to keep his promise. For one who has seen so much of the world, it argues much simplicity in Xuthus to have imagined that even the fear of death will insure silence in some people. Creusa is very soon made aware by her female attendants of her husband's scheme for deceiving her, and she behaves exactly as he had foreseen she would. She re-enters, accompanied by an aged servant of her house when the Chorus enlighten her on every point except one-the name of Ion's mother; and "the venerable man" is exactly the instrument needed by an indignant woman, for

"It is the curse of kings to be attended

By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
To break within the bloody house of life."*

"We," says the prompter of evil, "by thy husband are betrayed." This comes of unequal marriages. Of him we know as little as of his new-found bantling:

"Xuthus

Came to the city and thy royal house,
And wedded thee, all thy inheritance
Receiving. By some other woman now
Discovered to have children privately-
How privately I'll tell thee-when he saw

* 66 'King John," act iv. sc. 2.

Thou hadst no child, it pleased him not to bear
A fate like thine; but by some favourite slave,
His paramour by stealth, he hath a son.
Him to some Delphian gave he, distant far,
To educate, who, to this sacred house
Consigned, as secret here, received his nurture.
He, knowing this, and that his son advanced
To manhood was, urged thee to come hither,
Pleading thy barrenness. 'Twas not the god,
But Xuthus, who deceived thee, and long since
Devised this wily plan to rear his son.
Failing, he could on Phœbus fix the blame,
Succeeding, would adroitly choose the time
To make him ruler of thy rightful land."

The servant-loyal to his mistress as Evan dhu Maccombich was to Fergus MacIvor, equally ready to die for her, or to do murder to avenge her imagined wrongs-devises a plot that would have been quite successful had not Apollo been on the watch. Creusa is in possession of a deadly poison-"two drops of blood that from the Gorgon fell"-given to her father Erectheus by Pallas. One heals disease, the other works certain and swift death. The princess proposes to poison her stepson when he is beneath her roof. "I like not that," says the servant. "There you will be the first to be suspected; a stepdame's hate is proverbial." To this Creusa agrees, and, anticipating the ald vassal's thought, she herself prescribes the mode of destroying the son of Xuthus:

"This shalt thou do: this little golden casket
Take from my hand. Bear it beneath thy vest.
Then, supper ended, when they 'gin to pour
A. C. vol. xii.

K

Libations to the gods, do thou infuse

The drop in the youth's goblet. Take good heed
That none observe thee. Drug his cup alone

Who thinks to lord it o'er my house. If once

It

pass his lips, his foot shall never reach Athens' fair city; death awaits him here."

After a choral ode has been sung, a breathless attendant rushes in and demands where Creusa is. The plot has failed; the old man has been arrested; he has confessed the deed; and the rulers of Delphi are in hot pursuit of his accomplice, that she may die overwhelmed with stones. "How were our dark devices brought to light?" the Chorus inquires. Then, as usual on the Greek stage, and also in the French classical drama, a long narrative instructs the spectators of what has taken place. Up to a certain point all went well. Ion's chalice was drugged furtively. The destined victim poured his libation, and was just about to drink, when some one chanced to utter a word of ill omen, and so Ion poured his wine on the floor, and bade the other guests do the like. The cups are now replenished; but in the pause that ensued between the first and second filling of them, a troop of doves, such as haunt the dome of the temple, came fluttering in, and drank from the wine-pools on the ground. The spilt wine was harmless to all save That one drank of the deadly draught poured out by Ion :

one.

66

Straight, convulsive shiverings seized
Her beauteous plumes, around in giddy rings
She whirled, and in a strange and mournful note

Seemed to lament: amazement seized the guests,
Seeing the
poor bird's pangs: her breast heaved thick,
And, stretching out her scarlet legs, she died."

Creusa now hurries in: she has been doomed to death by the Pythian Council, and her executioner is to be Ion himself: she clasps the altar of Apollo, but that sanctuary will not avail her, for has she not attempted the life of one of the god's ministers? In reply to her appeals for life, Ion says:

"The good,

Oppressed by wrongs, should at those hallowed seats
Find refuge: ill becomes it that th' unjust

And just alike should seek protection there.”

As

But now the old prophetess, who had years before preserved the infant Ion, having learnt that he is soon to leave the Delphian shrine, produces the swaddlingclothes, the ornaments, and the basket, in which his mother had clad and laid him in the cave under the Acropolis. They may help him, she thinks, some day, to discover the secret of his birth. While her son is examining these tokens, Creusa sees them too, and claims them as the work of her own hands. Ion unfolds, one by one, the tiny robes, she names, without first seeing them, the subjects which were embroidered on each of them. The recognition is complete. Creusa embraces her long-lost son, and now hesitates not to acknowledge that Apollo is his father. If any doubt remained even on the part of Xuthus, who indeed is not an eyewitness of the discovery, it is dispersed by the speech of Minerva. She ex